I hesitate a moment to let the chickadee grab a last sunflower, the goldfinch, too.

I open the glass door.

The chickadees are always the last to leave and the first to come back. Also the most likely to fly right up by me while I’m at work and then veer off at the last second; they are as close to fearless as Darwin will allow. Upside down and hammering at the suet like a woodpecker, testing out the prickly elephant leaf for a toehold, flitting fast but never, ever hitting the glass, they’re my favorites.

Those and the Bewick’s, the little wren flipping itself around by the tail like a living helicopter.  A juvenile Bewick’s! Cool! I guess we’re raising them right!

The jays, though–they’ve completely disappeared. It surprised me when I realized how long it had been since I’d seen one.  Huh.  I guess the Cooper’s hawk showed them who was bossiest; they clearly nested a few backyards away this year, and the young seem to have imprinted somewhere else–not like the last few years, where the parents yelled at me for jaywalking if I went out my own back door. They kept it up at dark o’clock, too, screaming at only they knew what and off and on through the night.

Michelle slept better this spring.  My mother will recognize this phrase: joy and raptor.

I stand on a chair and pour the seed mix into the feeder.  Forget what the bags say: finches do not thistle while they work; nyjer, and safflower, too, stays put.  Back to the usual.

I love seeing the juvenile finches with their long skinny teenager look trying to land like a kid with a learner’s permit, their wings flapping furiously an inch above the patio,  sweeping them slightly backwards like a stickshift on a hill, then a hoppity-hoppity-hopp-phew-I-stopped! at last.

Lovebeads of millet in there too for the sun flower child, the dove mourning peacefully.

Looking up, I see a waiting line above me on the telephone wires and over there on that one tree, every top branch beperched.

It’ll be a moment before the squirrels come back; the finches and titmice, the towhees and occasional warbler or cowbird will have the patio to themselves a little longer because I stamped my foot at the squabbling furrytails. That’s one more peanut for dove, one less sunflower for squirrelkind.

I put the lid back on the Squirrelbuster–heads above me turn a little at the sound–scoot the chair back under the picnic table, and go to the sliding glass door.

They wait to hear that latch click. (I’ve experimented to see if they would take longer to come back if I don’t click it. It’s true, they do wait for that–but only so long, dinner’s ready!)

Click.

Time for LaughIn. Flock it to me flock it to me flock it to me flock it to me.